The tree disease Chalara fraxinea has already decimated around 90% of Denmark’s ash population and was found in the UK at a Buckinghamshire nursery in February, raising fears of a repeat of the epidemic of Dutch elm disease in the 1970s, which wiped out virtually the entire mature population of elm trees – 25m – by the 1990s.

Infected trees have since been found at a handful of locations in the UK from outside Glasgow to Cambridgeshire – though not in wild areas outside recent plantings and nurseries – and are being destroyed as they are found. Ash accounts for around a third of our wooded landscape which includes parks and hedgerows, as well as woods and forests.

A ban on imports could come into effect as early as November, just before the planting season, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Thursday, launching a consultation that ends on 26 October.

The environment secretary, Owen Paterson, said: “This disease could have a devastating impact on our native ash trees so we need to take action to stop it. We are working towards a ban on imports, and looking to impose movement restrictions on trees from infected areas.”

Let’s go.

Untitled 1
Welcome to From the Field, a weblog or "blog" from
the editors and
contributors at Lawn & Landscape. We're also on
Facebook.
Twitter, too.
Our app is available for free for iOS devices. And we have a
LinkedIn
group. Or, if that's not your thing, we have lots of other cool stuff that
we print on actual paper every month. Whatever you're into, we've got you
covered. Check it out, and please, enjoy yourself.